And from the ashes he Rose.

Throughout history we can see a pattern of men returning from war and taking up the time-honored tradition of Farming. There is something about nurturing life that works to heal them, and in our personal experience I have seen the same thing.

My husband came home from war a broken man. He was severely injured, he faced a future with a traumatic brain injury and PTSD as well as the knowledge that he had lost friends in a fire fight that he survived. He had been forced in defense of his own life and the lives of those around him to take lives, something that stays with him to this day. For a long time, he did not think himself deserving of the second chance he had been given.

In the end what stopped him from making a decision he couldn’t undo was having a life rely on him.  That life came in the form of a fat, old well before his time, angry, and stubborn cocker spaniel mix puppy by the name of Dante. If something happened to my husband what would happen to this little dog who chased post men and armadillos?  Before we were ever married, before we had children, before he knew he could still give to the world, that little black dog saved his life.

Dante has been gone over a year and a half now - When Dante reached the ripe old age of 14 my husband made the heart wrenching decision for him that it was indeed time for this little savior to cross the rainbow bridge. His heart was failing. His kidneys were giving out. He was mostly blind and deaf, his hips hurt, he growled in fear at nonexistence threats, but still he held out long after any dog would have been expected to because I like to think he couldn’t stand to leave my husband. He was loved to the very end and beyond. His job done and his watch was over.

Over the years that passed between his return from war and now, my husband found other ways to nurture and honor life. I have seen him despite being incredibly allergic foster an abandoned kitten until he could find it a home, I have seen him spending an hour in the pasture of our old property looking for another cat he saw by the side of the road, I have seen him take in a dog and her 10 puppies despite informing me he wanted nothing to do with them and then ensuring they all went to good homes,  I have seen him after the loss of his constant companion Dante find it in his heart to bring two more dogs home to love. Because what is a home without muddy paw prints and dog fur everywhere? The two standouts are of course our two beautiful children who he loves and protects fiercely but Children and animals, they’re easy to love. I think the very simplest of all, the most surprising in the end, is the pride I saw on his face, every year, without fail when he would return proudly from the garden of our old home to present me with the first bloom of the rose bushes he has been raising for a decade.  I think he marvels at the fact that he is capable of growing something so beautiful, and fragile, and sweet and I fall in love with him all over again every year.

This year, we are in a new home, it didn’t come with rose bushes. But it has them now. They are still just twigs in the ground at the moment, adorning the front of our house as a promise of the things we are going to grow here. Of the beautiful, sweet things that will bloom in this house because he is here to guide and nurture them.

Because in the end, he Rose.